Three years ago, Maja Svensson left her big corporate job to create her own business. She created Elsa and Me, a fashion business based out of New York City. In the three years since she started the endeavor, she has learned many things from the various periods of up and down. As a result, she recently completed an article for Huffington Post Women to accumulate her tips, in the hopes of helping others who seek to become entrepreneurs.
First, Svensson says that it is important to remember that anyone can become an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs don’t act, dress or talk a certain way. There is no mold that must be fulfilled. To be an entrepreneur, it is really only important that the individual know who they are, what they are good at, and what keeps them motivated. Beyond this, there are three very crucial traits every entrepreneur must have to preserve and survive the other business endeavors that fail—persistence, passion and patience. Persistence marks the success stories from those who quit too early on. Passion helps fuel this persistence, as the individual must truly enjoy what they do to continue to work towards their ultimate goal. Finally, many entrepreneur success stories are reported as if they happened overnight. This is not the case, as it often takes a solid decade to really establish a business. Therefore, patience is key; again, passion should assist in maintaining this particularly problematic trait for some.
There is a conception that, to start a business, one must first have a brilliant new idea. This can often serve as a bit of a hang-up for those interested in starting a business, as it can become frustrating to fester on this idea. However, Svensson offers a solution for this problem; instead of focusing on creating, first focus on a product or service the individual enjoys and work to make the product or process used to create it better, smoother. This allows for a unique service to offer, without the reliance on complete creativity needed to find a new product. In addition to this, another hang-up can be prolonged for a bit as well; a business plan isn’t necessary directly from the start. First, make the product and welcome feedback from consumers. From there, the business plan can become more direct and finite. However, one thing that is completely necessary from the start is an understanding of the individual’s finances and financial goals. It is crucial to know how much it costs to run the business, how much the product costs to make and, therefore, how much needs to be charged for the product to make a profit.